This was during a midweek practice in late September 2016, days after he had been named USC’s starting quarterback, and days before a trip to Utah for another critical Pac-12 Conference game. During a 7-on-7 drill, Darnold had connected with JuJu Smith-Schuster for a touchdown pass. In celebration, Smith-Schuster, the team’s exuberant, go-to wide receiver who would a year later become one of the NFL’s biggest personalities with a never-ending stream of viral social-media posts, danced, then spiked the football in the end zone.

When Smith-Schuster returned to the line of scrimmage for the next play, Darnold approached the junior.

“Hey man, we don’t need that right now,” Darnold said.

USC Trojans quarterback Sam Darnold prior to a NCAA college football game against the UCLA Bruins at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

“You’re right, you’re right,” Smith-Schuster said.

Only Trojans coach Clay Helton stood in earshot of their exchange.

“Not to be insulting, not to bring attention,” Helton said, “he just wanted to make his team better.”

The Trojans were then mired in a rare 1-2 start, little to cause celebration, before an improbable Rose Bowl run. The redshirt freshman showed no hesitation to address his older teammate. Smith-Schuster followed along.

A similar task will likely arrive next fall. Darnold will be a rookie in the NFL, perhaps a first-time starter, and asked to trigger another turnaround. The teams with the first three draft picks lost a combined 40 of 48 games in 2017, including the Cleveland Browns, only the second team in NFL history to lose all 16 regular season games.

Darnold has expressed few reservations about the outlook.

“He believes he can change a team,” Helton said. “I believe it too. I watched it.”

Studying history

The scene unfolded on a TV inside his parents’ Capistrano Beach home.

Sam Darnold was 8 years old the first time he watched the NFL draft, the event in 2006 that saw his USC heroes land among the first selections.

He was surprised when the Houston Texas picked Mario Williams, a defensive end from North Carolina State, instead of Reggie Bush with the No. 1 overall pick. “That was crazy,” Darnold said. Bush was drafted No. 2 overall.

He saw Matt Leinart picked by the Arizona Cardinals later in the top-10, and the young USC fan was as excited. Darnold’s first jersey was the cardinal No. 11 worn by the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback. Mark Sanchez, another heralded signal caller, was a top-10 pick three years later, taken fifth by the New York Jets.

Without an NFL team in Los Angeles or Orange counties during his childhood, Darnold followed and rooted for the former Trojans.

For years, he dreamed to be them.

For now, he hopes to be better than them.

USC’s quarterbacks rarely have been franchise-altering in the NFL, including its three passers picked in the top-10.

Leinart started just 17 games for Arizona in four seasons before his release. He retired after six seasons. Sanchez saw early success, helping the New York Jets reach consecutive AFC championship games, but threw more interceptions than touchdowns with the club and was released after five seasons. He has been on four teams in four seasons since, primarily a backup, and is currently unsigned.

The Arizona Cardinals’ Carson Palmer, now retired, throws under pressure from the Los Angeles Rams defense during the Rams’ 44-6 loss to the Cardinals at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, Calif. on Sunday, January 1, 2017. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The exception is Carson Palmer, the No. 1 overall pick by the Cincinnati Bengals in 2003. Palmer led the Bengals to their first postseason appearance in 15 years by his third season. When he retired in January, he had finished with 46,247 passing yards and 294 touchdowns, ranking 12th all-time in both statistical categories, a case for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But the strong-armed passer never led Cincinnati to a playoff win, was traded midway through his career and at times criticized for limited postseason success (his lone playoff win came in his 13th season with the Arizona Cardinals).

No former USC quarterback has started a Super Bowl.

The track record isn’t believed to impact Darnold’s draft stock.

“You can take some information,” former NFL general manager and SiriusXM NFL Radio analyst Phil Savage said, “but you have to look at each individual as a standalone talent and make the value judgment on that particular prospect rather than leaning on history.”

But the lineage does invite questions. Will Darnold be different than his predecessors?

It is a question he has heard, mostly from media chatter rather than NFL teams.

One New York Daily News column last year began, “Suck For Sam comes with a warning for Jets fans: USC quarterbacks in the NFL have generally sucked.”

Of the varying success by USC quarterbacks, he calls it a “coincidence.” Coaching changes. Injuries. The NFL is not a smooth path to navigate.

Darnold is instead optimistic about his own future.

In an interview a week before he met with Browns officials for a pre-draft visit at their facility in Berea, Ohio, this month, the reticent 20-year-old refined his selling points. Amid a deep class of passers, including UCLA’s Josh Rosen, he has been left to make his own case, eager to again shoulder a team.

“I truly believe I’m going to be a franchise quarterback and I can bring a franchise back to its feet and win multiple championships,” Darnold said. “Obviously I know that’s a process that might take a couple years, maybe a few years, but those are the type of things that have to get across.”

Roll the highlights

Take a look at highlight reel, and it is easy to catch a glimpse of why NFL talent evaluators might like Darnold.

There was the jump pass from a game-tying scoring drive in a win over Texas last season. To avoid a blitzing edge rusher, Darnold stepped forward in the pocket. While left without space to continue sliding, blocked by his offensive line, Darnold improvised, leapt in the air to gain an extra second of time and found an open target in tailback Stephen Carr over the middle of the field.

In another second-half comeback against Utah, Darnold was chased out the pocket, before circling back and splitting a pass between a pair of defensive backs to tight end Tyler Petite in the end zone for a 17-yard touchdown.

Backfield chaos invited some of his most dramatic plays, an eye for something when there appeared to be nothing.

“He doesn’t have to have his feet absolutely perfect to complete a ball,” Helton said. “Whether it’s on the move, whether there’s people laying in front of him and he can’t step through, different arm angles, that’s where he really comes into play. I think that’s the NFL. … Because of the level of pass rushers, you’re not going to be in a perfect world. It’s those guys that can perform in an imperfect world that are really thriving.”

Few college quarterbacks adjusted to pressure from defenses more adeptly.

According to ESPN Stats & Info, Darnold led the Football Bowl Subdivision last season with 1,138 passing yards under duress, more than a quarter of his total yards, and also completed 50.4 percent of his passes in such circumstances.

Part of Darnold’s ability to adjust on the fly stems from his athleticism, a former all-league basketball player at San Clemente High and first a linebacker/wide receiver on the varsity football team. Some of it is instincts, too.

Most draft analysts consider Darnold to be the most physically gifted USC quarterback prospect since at least Palmer. He measured 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds at the NFL scouting combine and boasts a strong right arm with nimble feet.

It was seen under the circumstances.

Darnold became USC’s starter nine months after a Holiday Bowl loss and during a 1-4 start to Helton’s tenure as full-time coach.

Leinart was named the Trojans’ starter a season after an Orange Bowl win, at the heyday of the Pete Carroll era, with Sanchez taking over after consecutive Rose Bowl victories, each surrounded by plush talent.

“Those were some of the best rosters in the history of college football,” ESPN analyst Todd McShay said. “There was talent everywhere, so the quarterback was put in a good position. We probably overrated those guys a little bit because of the supporting cast they had. With Darnold, it’s different.”

Some concerns appear. Darnold had 22 turnovers in 2017, including 13 interceptions and nine lost fumbles. It was more than 86 FBS teams and plagued the Trojans in some of their biggest losses, a midseason drubbing by Notre Dame when Darnold bobbled a high snap on their opening drive and a Cotton Bowl defeat to Ohio State when he threw a pick-six in the first half.

Darnold regretted the interceptions and fumbles, but many were an attempt to seize on a potential big play.

Sean Salisbury, the former USC quarterback and NFL analyst, puts it one way.

“He’s got guts,” Salisbury said.

He’ll need them in Cleveland.

‘A man of few words’

Keyshawn Johnson almost chuckled at the comparison.

Darnold’s personality has reminded him of New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning.

“A good boring,” said Johnson, the former USC wide receiver and No. 1 overall NFL draft pick who hosts a morning show on KPSN/710.

It is among a variety of descriptions.

When he was younger, Darnold’s parents teased, calling him “The Flatliner.”

“Never that excited, never that bummed out,” his father, Mike, once said.

“A man of few words,” Helton said.

Darnold remained unassuming, even last year amid swirling offseason hype as the one-time Heisman Trophy frontrunner.

Johnson said he believed the demeanor will serve Darnold well in the professional ranks.

“Quarterbacks tend to be arrogant and cocky in their own little way, because everybody puts them on a pedestal,” Johnson said. “It makes them feel like they’re better than everyone else. I don’t see Sam as that.

“You’re going to have some ups and some downs,” Johnson continued. “You have to shake off the downs. I’ve seen guys, that are riding high, when they hit a spot and it doesn’t go so well, they don’t know how to react to it.”

Johnson pointed to Sanchez, who never developed as the Jets’ quarterback. Some struggles were due to the franchise’s defensive-minded coaches. His run as the starter ended after shoulder surgery. But Sanchez was also consumed by too much “off-the-field Hollywood crap,” Johnson added. Most notably, Sanchez appeared in a 2011 photoshoot with GQ that was panned, one Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers called “embarrassing.”

Darnold was at his best after some of USC’s low points the past two seasons.

After the 1-2 start in 2016, he led the Trojans to nine consecutive wins, including in the Rose Bowl. In 2017, a five-game winning streak, including a Pac-12 championship, their first in almost a decade, followed a midseason loss at Notre Dame.

Darnold was 20-4 as the Trojans’ starting quarterback. They were 14-10 in the 24 games before he took over.

“I did at ‘SC,” Darnold said. “We weren’t doing too hot. We started out the year 1-2, then 1-3 when I stepped in. We came back. We had a great team, great coaches that were able to lead the way. I did my thing and we won games. I think that’s what I do best. I just win. When it comes down to it, yeah, I might throw a pick, I might fumble — which I’m working on — but at the end of the day, I’m going to win you games.”

Joey Kaufman is the USC beat writer for the Southern California News Group. Since joining the Orange County Register in 2015, he has also covered Major League Baseball and UCLA athletics. His work has been recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors and Football Writers Association of America. Kaufman grew up in beautiful downtown Burbank.

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